What Artists Should (and Shouldn’t) Post on Social Media

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If properly used, social media can be a powerful tool for harnessing a strong community of followers. However, it can also be a bit overwhelming to post often if you aren’t even sure what to post in the first place. Here are 8 things to post and 8 things not to post as a professional artist on social media…

8 Things to Post:

1. Art
Finished work, works in progress, and doodles. People follow you for your art because they enjoy it. Give them a little something extra that they can’t see anywhere else, like a glance behind the scenes at pictures of you at work, or pictures of your workspace itself.

2. Project Updates
Whether starting a blog or working on a mural, artists need to be self-promoters. If they’re interested in your art, chances are they’ll be interested in your other creative projects as well.

3. Product Updates
Releasing new products anytime soon? What about the few-of-a-kind products that are going out of stock? Let people know so they can snatch them up first!

4. Promos
They love your work, why wouldn’t they love a coupon?

5. Upcoming Events
Tell them about art exhibits or craft shows you’ll be attending, and maybe you’ll see some of them there.

6. Accomplishments
Celebrate a little! Talk about any features in magazines and blogs, or any other noteworthy milestones.

7. Inspiration
Take a moment to promote a fellow artist. This can be a great networking tool, just be sure to reach out to the artist first for permission to share their work. They’ll more than likely be extremely flattered and maybe even return the favor.

8. Anything Noteworthy
Are you donating 10% of all your proceeds to charity for the entire month? Or maybe you’re switching over to organic fair trade materials. These are good things to share and could potentially drive sales.

8 Things NOT to Post:

1. Spoilers
Although in progress pictures of small projects are interesting to see, avoid posting in progress shots of large projects that would otherwise be a huge surprise. Wait to post those pictures until after the project is fully unveiled.

2. The Same Thing Again, and Again, and Again…
Avoid posting a lot of pictures of the same project all at the same stage of development. No one needs to see the project from four different angles when one will do just fine.

3. Smack Talk
Even if that other artist really did rip-off your artwork, talking bad about other artists is not only inappropriate but can also burn more bridges than you may realize. Bridges between you and that artist could be burned, as well as the bridges between you and that artist’s fans, and you and anyone else who sees you acting less than professional. Such issues are better left discussed politely and privately.

4. Complaints
You don’t follow people to hear them complain, and chances are people don’t follow you to hear you complain either. Nobody likes being around a “Negative Nancy” all the time. You want your followers to feel better in your presence, not worse.

5. Knock-offs
Don’t steal other artists’ work, otherwise people may question your character and artistic integrity.

6. Copyrighted Pictures
Don’t post pictures that aren’t your’s or that you don’t have permission to post.

7. Irrelevant Content
Post personal content on your personal account. If I follow you for your art and you only post art once every five posts, chances are I’m going to become uninterested and unfollow you.

8. Anything Controversial
Unless you’re known by your fans for your controversial ways, you could potentially lose some followers if they find you disagreeable.

Before posting, think… What do people follow you for and what do they want to see? Take note of what you personally enjoy seeing when you’re the follower, as well as what you could go without, and then you’ll have a deeper understanding of what you should and shouldn’t be posting on social media.

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6 Comments

In regards to your last point about being controversial, interesting to note that Ryan Haliday (American Apparel Marketing dude) relies on controversy to generate an extrapolated response from an audience. Its the controversial stuff that gets people sharing it, talking about it and then wider discussion into media off social platforms. Sure you will offend people but thats part of the point, you always tell a friend about something that was bad before something good that happened. You need to generate that opined response to cause the idea/image to move thru the audience, according to him at least. What are your thoughts?

Hey Tom, great point! And that’s exactly why we said, “Unless you’re known by your fans for your controversial ways” or in other words, that’s what you’re looking for. ;) But yes, it can definitely get people talking. What is it that they say? Sometimes bad publicity is better than no publicity. Thanks for reading, Tom!